Blank-making machine



119% @L IS. KNQWLTUN 2,@39g319 BLANK MAKING MACHINE Filed Nov. 15, 1953 3 Sheets-Sheet l W c2. DC. KNOWLTQN msww BLANK MAKING MACHINE Filed Nov. 13,1955 I5 Sheets-Sheet 2 y 9 I c. D. KNOWLTON 2,039,319

BLANK MAKING MACHINE Filed NOV- 15. 1953 3' Shee'ts-Shet 3 Patented May 5, 1936 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFIQE BLANK-MAKING MACHINE Application November 13, 1933, Serial No. 697,801

7 Claims.

This invention relates to machines for producing blanks for such articles as boxes or their covers, it being especially applicable to the making of box-parts in which the paste-board or shellmaterial thereof carries thinner material, commonly paper, adhesively secured to one face to furnish a stay or a covering, and projecting beyond the edge of the shell-material so it may be folded over into contact with the opposing face. In continuous production methods of manufacturing blanks of this character, Webs of the shellmaterial and the thinner stay-material are advanced for the various assembling and forming operations successively performed during the travel of the material. One of these operations involves the gradual progressive folding of the projection of the stay-material into engagement with the face of the shell-material opposite that to which it has already been attached. There is created by this folding an outward strain in the stay, which resists the folding action and tends to prevent it from being kept close to the edge of the shell. It is an object of the present invention to maintain the desired relation of the stay and to provide effective means by which the folding is accomplished.

A feature of the invention leading to the attainment of this object involves means for advancing a Web of shell-material with its adhesively secured projecting thinner material and for folding the latter material about the edge of the former as they advance, together with means for neutralizing the strain produced in the projecting portion by the folding means. The strain-neutralizing means herein disclosed consists of a guide which deflects the blank-assembly in a path curved from the normal direction of advance. There is produced by this, a fullness in the projecting portion which relieves the strain upon it and permits it to be carried close to the edge of the shell-material Without the necessity of applying undue pressure.

A further feature of the invention may be found in folding means having successively acting folding walls spaced from one another, the first of these walls having a verticalface to contact with the material and a lower edge inclined forwardly so it departs from the normal plane of advance of the material, and the second having a contact-face substantially horizontal in a transverse direction and an under edge inclined forwardly and inwardly. As compared with the usual gradually curved folding Wall, these separate walls are simple to construct and, being without opposed surfaces which would produce a partly closed channel, they are free from liability to clog. It is also easy to apply to them wearresisting contact-portions of such vitreous material as glass.

The accompanying drawings illustrate a particular form of my invention,

Fig. 1 being a broken perspective view thereof;

Figs. 2 and 3 transverse sections on the lines II-II and III-III, respectively, of Fig. 1;

Fig. 4 shows in broken perspective the relations assumed by the webs during the folding;

Fig. 5 indicates diagrammatically the path of the material; while Fig. 6 shows, in broken side elevation, the websupplying and -coating means with which my improved folding means co-oper'ates.

The fragments of frame appearing at [0 may be located in an intermediate portion of a machine for making blanks which are to be set up as box-covers. At some prior operating position a web B of paste-board, or other shell-material, will have had adhesively secured against lateral displacement upon its upper face along the opposite margins strips S, S of Kraft, or other thin, strong material, projecting beyond the edges of the shell-material at s, s. This may be effected, as in Letters Patent of the United States No. 1,988,451, Knowlton, January 22, 1935, by gluing mechanism J (Fig. 6), which coats the strips S, S and delivers them to a pair of assembling and advancing rolls l2, l2, at which they meet the shell-web. To the under surface of shellmaterial B a web of lining-paper L may also have been applied, though this is not important in the present connection. 'The assembly will at this time appear as illustrated in the extreme left of Fig. 4 of the drawings. The under side of the projecting portion 5 of each stay has been coated with the adhesive by the mechanism J, and my invention is concerned with the folding of these portions over the edges of the shell-web B and into engagement with its under margins.

Spaced from each other along the frame I0 is a pair of rolls l2, l2 and a second pair of rolls I4, l4. These are so driven as to advance the assembled webs from left to right as viewed in Fig. 5. At the same time they apply pressure to the material to force together the contacting coated surfaces. The bites of the pairs of rolls preferably lie in substantially the same horizontal plane, and between them the assembly is guided over a bed consisting of bars l6 extending from one pair of rolls to the other. The bars are mounted near their ends upon transverse bridge-pieces 3, I8 and are so formed and supported that from downwardly and rearwardly inclined ends 20 they curve gradually and continuously about a relatively long radius having a center below the bed, their direction being first up from adjacent to the bite of the rolls I2 and then down into proximity with the bite of the rolls l4. The reason for this form of the bed will later be developed. The width of the bed between the outer edges of the outer bars is sufliciently less than the width of the blank-assembly to give a proper space for folding under the stayportions s for all widths of blanks to be produced. This transverse dimension of the bed may be varied through slot-and-screw connections l9 of the outer bars I6 to their supports.

To effect the turning under of the stay-portions s, folding devices are arranged at each side of the bed. These may be identical in character and the devices at but one side will be described in detail. Situated beside an outer bar I6 is a stationary folding wall 22 provided with a substantially vertical contact-face 24 and a downwardly and forwardly inclined lower edge 26, the rear extremity of which is shown as rounded at the corner 28. The wall is fixed to a bracket 30 secured to a longitudinal bar 32 supported at its ends upon the bridge-pieces l8, I8. These opposite bars 32, 32 may have extending between them a bar 33 which serves as an intermediate support for the guide-bars IS. The longitudinal center of the wall 22 is near the highest point of the bars IS, the end 28 lying above the rising portion of said bars. Spaced along the guide-bars in the directionof advance of the web-assembly is a folding wall 34, any transverse element of the contact-surface 36 of which is preferably substantially horizontal, but longitudinally the surface is inclined to correspond generally to the downward curvature of the guide-bars toward the rolls l4, I4. This inclination is best obtained by forming the wall 34 as a plate and securing it upon the upper inclined surface of a block 38 attached to the forward extremity of one of the bars 32. The rear inner corner of the wall 34 is rounded at 40, from which corner an edge 42 extends forwardly and inwardly. Both the bars 32 are joined to the bridge-pieces I8 by slot-and-screw conections 43 to permit transverse adjustment of the walls 22, until, for the particular width of blank-assembly being operated upon, the edges of the shellmaterial B will lie close to both contact-surfaces 24, there being sufficient additional width to freely admit the thickness of the stay-portion s at each side.

Considering first what would occur were the blank-assembly moved in a straight line, from the rolls l2, l2 to the rolls [4, l4, and the folding under of the stay-portions s, s accomplished by any stationary device which acts gradually during the travel of the material, each staymargin will be turned about an axis substantially identical with the longitudinal edge of the shellmaterial and any point in such margin will move in a spiral path which will be longer than the axis. As a result of this, there would be a resistance offered to the folding which would tend to hold the stay away from the shell-edge. Consequently, the stay, instead of being in the desired intimate adhesion to the edge, will tend to stand away in a loop. This condition can not be satisfactorily corrected by a close setting of the folding walls, because it produces too rapid wear of their contact-surfaces. When, however, the curved guide-bars I 6 of my invention are employed, the assembly rises with their upward curve and each projecting stay-margin 5 contacts with the corner 28 of the folding wall 22 and, being turned down thereby (Fig. 2), slides in a vertical position along the wall-surface 24. The assembly then descends over the downwardly curved portion of the bars 16 and encounters the corner 40 of the wall 34. This, and the inclined edge 42, turns the stay-portion 8 up into engagement with the under side of the shell-material (Fig. 3), it at this time resting upon the wall-surface 36 which follows the descending direction of the bars. Considering the portions of the stay which are being turned about the edge of the shell, and which are approximately between the points a: and y of Fig. 4, it will be seen that the ends of this spirally moving free portion are caused by the curved bed to approach each other. This creates a fullness in the staymargin from a: to y, relieving or neutralizing the strain therein, and allowing the stay to be pressed with little resistance into close engagement with the shell-edge before the wall 34 is reached. While, with such an arrangement, the wearing away of folding walls 22 is minimized, if desired these walls, which receive the heaviest frictional engagement, may be faced with glass or other vitreous material 44, as best seen in Fig. 2 of the drawings. The independent vertical and laterally horizontal folding walls 22 and 34, spaced from each other in the direction of travel of the material, give a structure of extreme simplicity, inexpensive to manufacture, free from any throat or passage in which the material may catch and clog, and lending itself readily to as-.

sociation with the curved guide-bed.

Having described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States is:

1. In a blank-making machine, means for advancing a web of shell-material with stay-material adhesively secured to an upper face thereof and projecting beyond the edge, a curved bed in contact with which the assembly of shell-material with the stay-material adhering thereto is advanced, and means contacting with the projecing portion of stay-material at the side of the bed for folding said projecting portion into engagement with the under face of the shell-material. V i 3 2. In a blank-making machine, means for advancing a web of shell-material with stay-material adhesively secured to a marginal face there of and projecting beyond the edge, a curved bed in contact with which the assembly of shell-material and stay-material is advanced, and a folding wall situated at one side of the bed and with which the curved projecting portion of the staymaterial contacts at a point where the remainder of the width of said stay-material is secured to the shell-material.

3. In a blank-making machine, means for securing against lateral displacement to each of the opposite margins of a web of shell-material the inner margin of a narrow web of relatively thin stay-material, each stay-web thus secured projecting beyond the corresponding edge of the shell-web, means for advancing the thus-secured webs, means for deflecting the web-assembly in a path gradually and continuously curved from the normal direction of the advance, and means contacting with the projecting portions of the staymaterial for folding them into engagement with the shell-material at the face opposite that to which they are secured before deflection.

4. In a blank-making machine, means for advancing a web of shell-material with stay-material adhesively secured to a marginal face thereof and projecting beyond the edge, a curved bed in contact with which the assembly of shellmaterial and stay-material is advanced, a substantially vertical folding wall situated at one side of the bed and with which the curved projecting portion of the stay-material contacts, and a folding wall substantially horizontal in a transverse direction and situated in advance of the vertical wall for contact with said projecting portion of the stay-material.

5. In a blank-making machine, pairs of pressure-rolls spaced from each other in a substantially horizontal direction and between which blank-material passes, guide-bars extending from proximity to the bite of one pair of rolls to the bite of the other pair and curved between the pairs of rolls, and stationary material-folding walls co-operating with the curved guidebars, one of said walls having a substantially vertical folding surface and another wall being provided with a folding surface inclined in the direction of curvature of the guide-bars.

6. In a blank-making machine, means for advancing blank-material, a folding wall having a substantially vertical face for contact with the material and a lower edge inclined forwardly from the normal plane of advance, and a folding wall spaced from that first mentioned and having a face substantially horizontal in transverse direction and arranged for contact with the material after it has received the action of the vertical wall and an inner edge inclined forwardly and inwardly;

7. In a blank-making machine, means for advancing blank-material, a folding wall having a substantially vertical face for contact with the material and a lower edge inclined forwardly from the normal plane of advance, and a folding wall spaced from that first-mentioned and having a face substantially horizontal in transverse direction and arranged for contact with the material after it has received the action of the vertical wall-face and an inner edge inclined forwardly and inwardly, the vertical folding face being furnished by vitreous material.

CUTLER D. KNOWLTON. 

